Marcel Timmer is Professor of Economic Growth and Development at the University of Groningen and Director of the Groningen Growth and Development Centre (GGDC). He currently is participating in multiple international programs funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the European Commission in the areas of international comparisons of productivity, technological and structural change and economic growth. In the past years, he co-lead three international research projects funded by the European Commission services involving large-scale consortia of research institutes worldwide. These include the EU KLEMS project, comparing patterns of growth in the European Union, Japan and the U.S. (2003-2008) and more recently the World Input-output Database (WIOD) project (2009-2012). The WIOD has developed new databases, accounting frameworks and models to increase our understanding of the socio-economic and environmental consequences of increasing global integration. He has been a consultant and advisor for various organizations including the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank, the Japanese Ministry of Economics, Trade and Industry (METI), and Statistics Netherlands. He has been associate managing editor of the Review of Income and Wealth and has extensively published in national and international journals, including the Review of Economics and Statistics, Economic Journal, Journal of Economic Perspectives, Journal of Development Economics, Economic Policy, and the Journal of Economic History. He is the lead author of the book Economic Growth in Europe, published by Cambridge University Press.